Science at Collins

The third week in November is Geographic Awareness Week, and contains, smack in the middle, national GIS day, so I wanted to highlight some of the geographic information resources we have here at Collins, since geography is so much a part of many scientific investigations.

Check out some of the resources at Collins, and some of the materials that are available online, at the Geographic Information page.

I think the National Environmental Atlas is particularly exciting—you can build and browse maps in eleven categories, spanning from the biology of invasive species to Congressional Districts.

• Adelman, Larry, Llewellyn Smith, Vital Pictures, National Minority Consortia, and California Newsreel, eds. 2008. Unnatural causes [videorecording] : Is inequality making us sick?. Widescreen format ed. San Francisco, Calif.: California Newsreel.
• Armstrong, F. A., and Katherine M. Blundell, eds. 2007. Energy– beyond oil. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Clover, Charles. 2006. The end of the line : How overfishing is changing the world and what we eat. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Creighton, Sarah Hammond. 1998. Greening the ivory tower : Improving the environmental track record of universities, colleges and other institutions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
• Jeans, Christopher,Producer., Julian Sabath Editor., Television Trust for the Environment, United Nations Environment Programme, and Films for the Humanities & Sciences, eds. 2006. H₂O [videorecording] : Hilltops-2-oceans. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
• Opie, John. 1998. Nature’s nation : An environmental history of the United States. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
• Roberts, Peter, Joe Ravetz, and Clive George, eds. 2009. Environment and the city. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.
• Santiago, Myrna I. 2006. The ecology of oil : Environment, labor, and the mexican revolution, 1900-1938. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Schnaiberg, Allan, and Kenneth Alan Gould, eds. 2000. Environment and society : The enduring conflict. Caldwell, N.J.: Blackburn Press.

• Craig, Robin Kundis, and Environmental Law Institute, eds. 2009. The Clean Water Act and the Constitution : Legal structure and the public’s right to a clean and healthy environment. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute.
• Mills, Robin M. 2008. The myth of the oil crisis : Overcoming the challenges of depletion, geopolitics, and global warming. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
• Radkau, Joachim, and Thomas Dunlap, eds. 2008. Nature and power : A global history of the environment. 1st English ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Saha, Kshudiram. 2008. The earth’s atmosphere : Its physics and dynamics. Berlin: Springer.

The western tanager is only one of the many species (and, indeed classes) represented in the Western Soundscape Archive, a digital collection at the University of Utah. The Archive contains streaming audio and image files of about 80% of the West’s bird species, 90% of the frog and toad species, and many mammal and reptile species.  Species are searchable or browsable by common or Latin name.

Moreover, each species entry includes information extracted from NatureServe Explorer, including conservation status, distribution, and a brief overview of the species’ ecology and life history (including citations).

Additionally, the National Park Service has made numerous spectrograms  collected over the past 20 years available through the Archive. These files, created from sound monitoring projects around the country’s national parks, have been largely inaccessible to the public until now. However, now that they’ve been released, they provide graphic visual snapshots of the sound environment that can be used to analyze acoustic patterns revealing behaviour patterns,  sound pollution, and more.

Biology students may find this resource useful as a source of data for analysis, before field exercises, when studying biodiversity or as a way of starting investigations into particular species or ecosystems.

• Anderson, Terry Lee, and Laura E. Huggins, eds. 2008. Greener than thou : Are you really an environmentalist?. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press.
• Broecker, Wallace S., and Robert Kunzig, eds. 2009. Fixing climate : What past climate changes reveal about the current threat–and how to counter it. New York: Hill and Wang.
• Coley, David A. 2008. Energy and climate change : Creating a sustainable future. Chichester, West Sussex ; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
• Dawson, Brian, and Matt Spannagle, eds. 2009. The complete guide to climate change. London ; New York: Routledge.
• de Villiers, Marq. 2008. The end : Natural disasters, manmade catastrophes, and the future of human survival. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.
• Faber, Daniel. 2008. Capitalizing on environmental injustice : The polluter-industrial complex in the age of globalization. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Freyfogle, Eric T., and Dale Goble, eds. 2009. Wildlife law : A primer. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Goleman, Daniel. 2009. Ecological intelligence : How knowing the hidden impacts of what we buy can change everything. 1st ed. New York: Broadway Books.
• H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics,and the Environment, ed. 2008. The state of the nation’s ecosystems 2008 : Measuring the lands, waters, and living resources of the United States. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Hoekstra, Arjen Y., and Ashok K. Chapagain, eds. 2008. Globalization of water : Sharing the planet’s freshwater resources. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
• Houghton, Sir John. 2009. Global warming : The complete briefing. 4th ed. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Jacobsen, Rowan. 2008. Fruitless fall : The collapse of the honey bee and the coming agricultural crisis. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Bloomsbury.
• Kresic, Neven. 2009. Groundwater resources : Sustainability, management, and restoration. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Manheim, Frank T. 2009. The conflict over environmental regulation in the united states : Origins, outcomes, and comparisons with the EU and other regions. New York ; London: Springer.
• Masood, Ehsan, Daniel Schaffer, and Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, eds. 2006. Dry : Life without water. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Maxwell, Nancy Irwin. 2009. Understanding environmental health : How we live in the world. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett.
• Miller, Jeffrey G., Ann Powers, Nancy Long Elder, and Environmental Law Institute, eds. 2008. Introduction to environmental law : Cases and materials on water pollution control. Washington, D.C.: ELI Press Environmental Law Institute.
• Committee on Hydrology, Ecology,and Fishes of the Klamath River, National Research Council . 2008. Hydrology, ecology, and fishes of the Klamath river basin. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
• Powell, James Lawrence. 2008. Dead pool : Lake Powell, global warming, and the future of water in the west. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Roston, Eric. 2008. The carbon age : How life’s core element has become civilization’s greatest threat. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Walker & Co. : Distributed to the trade by Macmillan.
• Sedjo, Roger A., ed. 2008. Perspectives on sustainable resources in America. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
• Singer, S. Fred, and Dennis T. Avery, eds. 2007. Unstoppable global warming : Every 1,500 years. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Sproule-Jones, Mark, Carolyn Johns, and B. Timothy Heinmiller, eds. 2008. Canadian water politics : Conflicts and institutions. Montréal Québec: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
• Turney, Chris. 2008. Ice, mud and blood : Lessons from climates past. London ; New York: Macmillan.
• Weart, Spencer R. 2008. The discovery of global warming. Rev. and expand ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Wilson, Duff. 2002. Fateful harvest : The true story of a small town, a global industry, and a toxic secret. 1st Perennial ed. New York: Perennial.

Environmental History Resources is a well-built site that collects and promotes environmental history sources. Maintained by Dr. Jan Oosthoek at the University of Ediburgh (who has published a companion teaching site), the site serves as an approachable starting point for students’ orientation to environmental history and as a resource for finding multimedia learning reinforcements like podcasts.

Bibliographies divided by topic and geography are available as starting points for the interested student, and a series of podcasts, vodcasts, and creative-commons licensed essays are available as well.

• Campbell, Kurt M., ed. 2008. Climatic cataclysm : The foreign policy and national security implications of climate change. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
• Doremus, Holly D., and A. Dan Tarlock, eds. 2008. Water war in the Klamath Basin : Macho law, combat biology, and dirty politics. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Fagan, Brian. 2008. The great warming : Climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
• Jacobson, Michael C., ed. 2000. Earth system science : From biogeochemical cycles to global change. San Diego Calif. : Academic Press.
• Kennedy, Donald, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, eds. 2008. Science magazine’s state of the planet, 2008-2009. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Mass, Cliff. 2008. The weather of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
• Oliveira, Jose Antonio Puppim. 2008. Implementation of environmental policies in developing countries : A case of protected areas and tourism in Brazil. Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Spellman, Frank R. 2008. The science of water : Concepts and applications. 2nd ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
• Starr, Steven Producer, Irena Director Salina, Caitlin Dixon Film editor., Christophe Composer Julien, Group Entertainment, and Oscilloscope Pictures, eds. 2008. Flow [videorecording] : For love of water. Anamorphic widescreen format (1:78:1) ed. New York, N.Y.: Oscilloscope Pictures.
• Stern, N. H., and Great Britain. Treasury, eds. 2007. The economics of climate change : The stern review. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Click the titles of these new arrivals to be taken to the catalog record to find call numbers and availability.

• Allen, Roy E. Editor, ed. 2008. Human ecology economics : A new framework for global sustainability. London ; New York: Routledge.
• Colby, Bonnie G., and Katharine L. Jacobs, eds. 2007. Arizona water policy : Management innovations in an urbanizing, arid region. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
• Kovel, Joel. 2007. The enemy of nature : The end of capitalism or the end of the world?. 2nd , updat and expand ed. London ; New York Halifax New York, NY: Zed Books ; Fernwood Pub. ; Distributed in the USA exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan.
• Rechtschaffen, Clifford, and Eileen P. Gauna, eds. 2002. Environmental justice : Law, policy, and regulation. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
• Traer, Robert. 2009. Doing environmental ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Benton-Short, Lisa, and John R. Short, eds. 2008. Cities and nature. London ; New York: Routledge.

Chape, Stuart, Mark Spalding, and Martin Jenkins, eds. 2008. The world’s protected areas : Status, values and prospects in the 21st century. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chivian, Eric, Aaron Bernstein, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and IUCN–The World Conservation Union, eds. 2008. Sustaining life : How human health depends on biodiversity. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Crooks, Kevin R., and M. A. Sanjayan, eds. 2006. Connectivity conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Diehn, Timur, Jörg Seibold, Arno Hefner, Klaus Töpfer, Peter H. Gleick, Karlheinz Böhm, Vandana Shiva, Deutsche Welle TV, and Films for the Humanities & Sciences, eds. 2004. Thirsty planet[videorecording]. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.

Hicks, Robert L., ed. 2008. Greening aid? : Understanding the environmental impact of development assistance. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Holmer, Marianne, ed. 2008. Aquaculture in the ecosystem. S.l.: Springer.

Kimbrell, Andrew, ed. 2002. The fatal harvest reader : The tragedy of industrial agriculture. Washington: Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Island Press.

McCarthy, Michael A. 2007. Bayesian methods for ecology. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Revesz, Richard L., and Michael A. Livermore, eds. 2008. Retaking rationality : How cost-benefit analysis can better protect the environment and our health. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Stolzenburg, William. 2008. Where the wild things were : Life, death, and ecological wreckage in a land of vanishing predators. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Bloomsbury.

Storch, David, P. A. Marquet, and James H. Brown 1942 Sept.25-, eds. 2007. Scaling biodiversity. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.